January 14th - Haifa Camp
14 Jan 2004
The circus in the Palestinian refugee camp in Baghdad.
How did she come here? Asmaa sighed. “It is a very long story and I am tired and sick.” She lives in a tent with UNHCR stamped on the roof in the grounds of the old Haifa Palestinian Sports Club, among twelve thousand homeless families. “I was born in Iraq and brought up here, married here and had my children here, but my father was Palestinian so I am Palestinian. I have no nationality, no identification, no right to own property.”

After the war the landlord came to the house and threatened to douse it in petrol and burn it if they didn’t leave. Her four sons live there with her but her two daughters have been squeezed into a relative’s house. “There are so many young men here. I am too afraid for them here. But they had to stop going to school because of the situation. It is not safe.”

For a time they were supported by the UN and aid agencies, she said, but there has been no constant assistance for some months now. Half of the aid is taken anyway by the people inside. She and her friend gestured towards the buildings and offices of the club. “They sell it outside the camp. But Dr Qusay owns the club and if he did not let us live here we would be on the streets.”

Fifteen families arrived back at the camp today, Eman said. They were put in house and the UN promised to pay the rent but, after three months, without any rent being paid, they’ve been evicted. They returned to greasy puddles between the tents, no electricity and little gas. Gas heaters inside the tents are dangerous in any case but there are no other options for warmth. The kids can’t study when they come back from school because it’s cold and dark, Eman said.

Those who could sent their children to other relatives during the winter, splitting families, because it’s too cold for them to live in tents without even a hot water supply. “We go to our relatives every two weeks or so to do washing,” Eman says, indicating the lines of clothes drying between tents. “We cannot remember what it feels like to be clean.”

Our Iraqi colleagues were stuck in traffic and the kids were waiting so we started the show without them, then filled in while Haider and Fadhil and the others built the set for their play. We taught them the Birdy Dance, as if they hadn’t got problems enough, spared them the Macarena, started a Mexican Wave with sound effects around the room, played a game involving splitting the room in two and lots of shouting “Wo-oh” from one side and “Boomchucka” from the other.

The kids have a football and almost nothing else to play with. The swimming pool is best described as manky but then, it is winter. We were required outside for clown football afterwards and stayed, talking to the mothers, playing with the children, juggling, spinning them round, turning them upside down, dancing to imaginary music. They renamed Amber and me “Patata” and “Tomata”. I think I was Tomata. Helicopters and tanks pass frequently and the kids stopped whatever they were doing to look at them.

Dr Qusay says it’s a myth that Palestinians were better treated than anyone else under Saddam’s rule. “We weren’t allowed to own any property. It is not true that Iraqis hated Palestinians and that the Iraqi government protected Palestinians from them. It was the other way. Our Iraqi friends protected us from the government. Iraqi friends used to help us by putting a car or a house or a business in their names so that we could buy them.”

Still the kids showed me tatty pictures of Saddam from the old banknotes. “Saddam Zain,” some said. Saddam is good. I had to disagree. For me, I don’t like Saddam, I don’t like Bush and I don’t like Blair. One of the boys was angry with me. No, he insisted. Saddam was good. I suppose at least he had a home in Saddam’s day.

We went back to the boys’ house to negotiate a regular time to see them. The first man we spoke to thanked us for coming the day before. “It was beautiful to see them so happy with you.” The second man wasn’t so keen on us. It’s all very well but it’s something for later on. We need to educate them first. He wanted to know our backgrounds. Peat talked about the work he’s done in the Balkans and Ireland with Children’s World International, Balkan Sunflowers and others.

“Yes, but what’s your scientific background?” We’d been warned beforehand that the people running the place were well qualified academically but had no experience of working with kids.

“Well,” Peat said, “I lived on the streets for ten years. I get on well with street kids.”

Little Ali was inside the place, dressed in clean ironed clothes, a bright coloured T shirt and crisp jeans. He smelled free of solvents as he hugged me, already a change from the day before, hovering between the worlds in the street outside the home with a cloth soaked in thinners in his pocket.


Fadhil told us they’ve set up an actors’ union. We talked more, as we often do, about the need to explore through drama what’s happened and happening and for there to be an outlet for playwrights and artists. We talked about the possibilities of links with Equity, which Peat’s a member of, and other actors’ unions, theatres and performers outside Iraq. It will cost $2500 for them to produce Haider’s play, “Burning of Violet” by Jack Odeberti. We want to help them set up a website to publicise what they’re trying to do, exchange ideas with people around the world and find sponsorship for actors, writers and projects. There’s no bank account yet but one is in the pipeline. As ever, if you think you might be able to help, get in touch.